Things You Aren't Supposed To Know About
by Lauren K
Summary: City of Villains: Some of the things you overhear in the Rouge Isles give you the feeling that you need to soak your brain in bleach. UPDATE: Holiday confusion.
1. gasp

**AN**- This story is almost entirely things that actually happened to me in my time at Cap Au Diable. There is a slight amount of embellishment, simply because even the wonderfully detailed world of City of Villains doesn't make a very good story if you don't give it just an extra nudge. After all, not often do you see people speaking in floating word bubbles in real life. This story features my character from Infinity server, Kandosii. He is merely there as a facilitator for the overheard and easily misinterpreted collection of conversations. Some things may not actually occur in the game, but simply my angle of observation made it appear as such.

Disclaimer- Oh, how I wish I could own City of Villains! Then I could have Lord Recluse all to myself... grins insanely And I could make that alternate version that has been discussed with a friend of mine... But alas, I don't own City of Villains. All I own is my copy of the game, which included a two inch tall figure of Captain Mako, as well as a spiffy poster. Oh, and I own the poster that came with the pre-order box, which is infinitely more spiffy. I also own a jacket made for the US Naval Academy, a watch with a chipped face, and a pair of stripey socks. I feel so happy.

Kandosii, an up and coming member of the wave of villains that Arachnos had freed from the Zig, flew over the edges of the Vagabond Woods, highly pleased with himself. The days had been very productive since the breakout, and he was heading back to his current contact with yet another report of a successful mission. It wouldn't be long before he could advance to threat level 20, and the extended access that it would give to other areas of the Rouge Isles. With enough power, he would be able to afford to fix his crashed ship, and escape this little planet. Then, with the powers that had manifested themselves with the crash, he would be an unstoppable force in the galaxy at large. He alone would-

This increasingly narcissistic train of thought was violently derailed by a scream from below. He stopped, hovering in midair, searching for the source of the scream- its originator might have something valuable to be taken from them. But upon locating the source of the shriek, it didn't seem to be much out of the ordinary- a group of Circle of Thorns cultists clustered around an Elite Arachnos trooper. His uniform was ripped open in several places, showing the signs of the man's desperate struggle to escape, which continued even now, as whatever free will that had escaped his indoctrination into the Wolf Spider Huntsmen was crushed by the magic of the cultists. The robed figures encircling the man were all chanting some unintelligible spell, waving their arms in what they seemed to hope were meaningful patterns. Maybe it was just his position above the scene, but Kanodsii was prepared to swear that one of them seemed just a little _too_ close to the Arachnos trooper to just be performing your typical mind control magic…

The trooper, who had been struggling and making small strangled sounds of distress, suddenly seemed to find his voice, and spoke in a pleading, almost pathetic tone as he fought more violently to escape. "No… please, no!" It was rather hard to tell which one of the figures around him spoke, but the voice seemed to come from the one looming over the doomed disciple of Lord Recluse. "Submit to our will!" the figure yelled, laughing insanely as their captive's thrashing became all the more panicked.

Kandosii, who suddenly felt much less confident and in control of things, decided at this point to exit the area as fast as possible. As he was flying away, however, he heard a loud pained gasp, and, without consulting his brain, his head turned to focus his clouded white eyes on the scene behind him. The Wolf Spider was sobbing incoherently, his body jerking brokenly as the cultist looming over him continued to cackle insanely. His eyes widened in shock- Once again, the angle made it difficult to see, but it looked almost like that cultist was…

……..

…….

_Oh, my feking **Gods.**..._

Kanodsii, a villain who still had quite a ways to go before he could become an unstoppable force in the galaxy at large, spent the next four hours on top of the tallest Arachnos building in Aeon City, and refused to come down.


	2. An alt's bad day

AN- Well, on a quick flyby over Cap Au Diable, I heard today's strange quote. I've also got some other ideas floating around my head, but they might not get typed for a bit- I've got a mountain of work from classes to do. This also contains a little ode to HK-47, the awesome droid from Knights of The Old Republic. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get his name for one of my alts, so give a warm welcome to HK-54!

HK-54 was a fairly average droid for his model. He was independent, observant, intelligent and light on his feet. His interests included long walks through the Vagabond Woods, Aratech sniper rifles, and fresh, attractive programming upgrades. But most of all, his favorite thing to do was to go to the quartermaster after a good day of wanton destruction and buy the latest and best in all things destructive. Unfortunately, he couldn't, because of a reluctant teammate by the name of Kandosii, who was currently sitting at the top of the Arachnos building. HK's vocabulator made a hissing noise, almost like a sigh. Meatbags could be so infuriating.  
"Annoyed Order: Come down at once, meatbag. There is a shipment of new plasma grenades that just arrived," He shouted to the figure peering over a ledge, many meters above. Several civilians looked at the droid curiously as they passed.

"Like fek I'm coming down!" Came the reply from above. HK shook his head. "Exasperated Statement: I can't _believe _the irrationality of meatbags." "Well, you'd better bloody well believe it! I'm not going to come down until I feel like it!" A Mu Adept stopped several feet away from HK, staring curiously at the droid. Was this strange robot malfunctioning? Whatever it was, it shouldn't be here.

"I give you five seconds to find somewhere else to exist, robot." HK turned his head to regard the mystic. "Statement: Very well, I shall leave." The mystic nodded in approval as the droid turned on his heel, calling back over his shoulder to the form above, "Manipulative Declaration: I suppose I'll just have to spend the funds I had set aside for purchasing one of those X-Box 360s for you. Shame."

The Arachnos mystic suddenly found himself slammed into the ground with a loud '_Crunch!'_ as Kandosii dropped on him in his hurry to catch up with the droid. The droid turned to face the suddenly not so reluctant metahuman. "Smug Statement: I _knew_ that would get you to come down." Kandosii shrugged. "I'm not going to pass up a chance to get a 360." "Annoyed Statement: I don't currently have the funds to acquire one of those overpriced boxes full of idiocy or my plasma grenades. We're going to have to earn it. Addendum: And besides, the Playstation 3's specifications show it to be a far superior machine." Kandosii glared at the droid. "Should have _known_-" "Interjection: You should have, meatbag. If you want a trustworthy droid, find one of those idiotic 3PO models. What a _waste _of good circuitry. Statement: I do not have time to exchange words with a meatbag. If you wish to purchase your glorified entertainment scrap heap, then you will follow me." With that, HK activated his jetpack and rocketed off, leaving his unwilling companion still trying to think up a retort.

Several minutes later, the 'partners' were flying over the sprawl of office buildings and apartment complexes spread haphazardly around the base of Aeon City. They were, of course, arguing. "I still don't get why you do so much console snobbery, HK. I mean, you appreciate self-serving, immoral actions, correct?" "Affirmation: Yes. It is the most efficient and logical way to go about any action." "Then why don't you like Microsoft?" "Exasperated Statement: Because, you brainless meatbag, they- Interjection: Quiet! I hear something." The duo stopped in midair, listening. There were indeed, strange and unidentifiable noises coming from the roof of a nearby office building, hidden by a taller block of apartments. Kandosii dropped down to land on the nearest roof, still listening. "It sounds like two people… I think I know them. They're that pair of Goldbrickers that keep on randomly attacking me whenever I fly by." "Statement: _All_ of the yellow hued giant mosquitoes attack anyone that flies by." "You know what I bloody well mean!" They quieted again as the noises down below got a little louder, accompanied by a grunt and a crash. "Sounds like they're having trouble with something." HK was about to say something very witty about stating the obvious, when one of the Goldbrickers said something down below, in a stressed sounding voice, as the other sounds below continued.

"Hey, move your hand!" HK stopped for a fraction of a second to process this new data. English is a very confusing language, the context of a sentence making the difference between whether the speaker was merely tired of their mode of employment, or their job was actually killing them. HK never liked the language- there weren't enough words to describe the joy of shooting out the knees of a target from 120 km. But the phrase in question didn't seem to have any real violent overtones- the Goldbrickers were simply on a job, stealing something for their kleptomaniac king. But, as HK listened more closely to the noises from below, combined with the context of the phrase- in an isolated area of a usually unraveled portion of the area, then they might just be engaging in-

"Hurry up. I feel exposed up here," the voice from one of the unseen Goldbrickers reached HK's auditory sensors. He made a small distressed noise, like a mouse being trodden on.

Kandosii was standing at the base of the Arachnos tower in Aeon City, staring up at a distant form huddled on one of the outcroppings of the skyscraper. He sighed. "Come on, HK! I want to get a 360 before the shop sells out!" "Distressed Statement: No! I refuse to come down!"


	3. Sandy Claws

Whoohoo! Got this one done within the day that I received the inspiration for it, a record for me! If you have an account with NCsoft, then you should check your e-mail- there's a special holiday event coming up for both City of Villains and City of Heroes. The notification that I found in my hotmail this morning was what started this newest chapter of the twisted events that take place on the Rouge Isles. Also in this chapter, I mention two more of my alts- Velom, who for the purposes of this story is now Kandosii's younger brother, and Der Metzgermeister, my newest alt, who is a Soldier/Dark MM. Just like Kandosii, her name is a little nod to a favorite- With Kandosii, its Star Wars, and with Der Metzgermeister it's my favorite band. If you can say where either of these came from, you get… uh… A glass of eggnog! And a glass eye, just because this is the Rouge Isles- we ain't gonna be havin' that gawshdern _happy_ stuff 'round here, by jiminy!

…Carry on….

_Well,_ Kandosii thought as he logged on to his email account, resting his feet on the desk, _It could be worse_… He had gotten his shiny new X-Box 360 _God Box_ and had blew a good six hours on the thing playing Condemned. Nothing better than a good creepy FPS to start the day. And end it, he realized, as he looked at the clock. Opening up his Inbox, there were several new emails. One, from a N3cr0phi1i4c, was titled "Better Resurrections- never be left with a dead partner again!" Spam. Again. While Lord Recluse might be evil, he couldn't compare to the complete calculated menace of an inbox full of junk e-mail. A lot of it had to do with "Special Holiday Savings", or "Christmas Shopping".

Kandosii had heard about this. Not being a native of the planet, he was still rather confused about it. So far, he'd figured out that the son of some deity had been born on Christmas Day, ushering in a dark age of rampant consumerism headed by a rotund elf by the name of Sandy Claws, attended to by his enslaved brethren and strange equine creatures with branching antlers and glowing noses. He wasn't sure how many of his facts he had gotten right, but there was a lot of 'Christmas' around, whatever it is. The Wolfspiders had been breaking up roving groups of singing miscreants around the residential areas, and he had seen one exceptionally paranoid and slightly familiar-looking Huntsman sniping shoppers weighed down with bags of offerings to the Sandy Claws. Every shop was covered in red and green adornments. Even the Quartermaster Kandosii went to was wearing a pointed, floppy red hat on top of his helmet, along with a dazed expression, as if he had been hit by a truck. Whatever this 'Christmas' was, it had a powerful and sinister effect on the populous.

The spam met its deletion, and Kandosii continued looking through his e-mails. The next was from HK. He frowned- The sociopathic droid had sent him a computer virus he had developed himself for his last birthday. _How did he know when my birthday is, anyway?_ He wondered as he ran the e-mail through multiple virus scans. After all of them returned a clean report, he opened the e-mail. The shortness of HK's letter was rather disappointing, really.

--------------------------

Are they gone now?

--HK-54

---------------------------

It seems that HK was _still_ sitting on top of the Arachnos tower in Cap Au Diable. If you looked up "paranoid" in the dictionary… well, you'd find "par·a·noid pérrə nóyd (adj.) **1. distrustful** obsessively anxious about something, or unreasonably suspicious of other people and their thoughts or motives." And no picture. But if you were to come across a picture for that entry in the dictionary, it would be of HK. Well, his loss. A few keystrokes later, Kandosii's e-mail was sent, whose abruptness put HK to shame-

---------------------------

No.

--Kandosii

--------------------------

He smirked. HK would probably stay up there for another week after that. He returned to his inbox and looked through the remaining unopened e-mails. One was from his little brother Velom, entitled, in his no nonsense matter, "Problems".

--------------------------

I have just received a package from an "anonymous benefactor", which is approximately 1 x .5 meters. It also bears the words, "A holiday gift." Should I open it, or should I leave it out in front of my neighbor's door- he has been playing rap 'music' at an inordinately high volume while I am trying to study. Please respond promptly; I would not want to be killed or grievously injured because my elder brother couldn't muster up the strength to place his hands on the keyboard and type an answer.

--Velom

----------------------------

Kandosii sighed. Velom was your average teenage genius you saw around the Rouge Isles- sarcastic, demeaning, and a 'you will do what I say or suffer the wrath of the nerd of doom' sort of air about them. He was going to have a conniption when he saw the holiday jetpack every destined had been gifted over the past few days. He glared at his own, which was sitting forlornly in the corner, covered by an old trench coat. It was still making a nearly inaudible sound of cheerful sleigh bells, and as he watched, an unnaturally large snowflake sneaked out of the back of the red and green eyesore to melt on the carpet. He typed a short response back to his brother-

---------------------------

Don't worry about it. It's not going to kill you, unless you're allergic to bad taste. Have fun with your gift from Black Scorpion. Oh, and I'd just get rid of the neighbor anyway. No real pretence needed- remember, this is the Rouge Isles, not your prep school. Take some time off from becoming a human encyclopedia and have some fun.

--Kandosii

---------------------------

He pressed 'Send'. That kid still needed to learn how things worked around here. Most people thought evil was simply random acts of violence and immorality, like kicking over a child's sand castle. They're wrong, though- it is in fact, highly calculated acts of violence and immorality, such as kicking over a child's sandcastle, _then_ heating the grains of sand until they glowed red, then taking the incandescent pieces of the shells of dead microscopic diatoms and placing them with exquisite care on sensitive portions of the sand castle's creator, and anyone else with connections to this person, just to drive the point home. Evil isn't just a day job, it's a way of life.

The last e-mail in his Inbox was from a weird little mastermind he had met the other day- Der Metzgermeister had come to the Rouge Isles almost directly from a German maximum security prison. She employed mercs to get her work done, but the job seemed to have a very high turnover rate. _Wonder what her name means_… He mused as he clicked on her e-mail.

-------------------------

Take a look at this- I found it in a raid on an Arachnos base. Should we be worried?

--Der Metzgermeister

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There was an attachment to the e-mail. He clicked again, bringing up a memo from something known only as NCsoft. He skimmed it quickly, looking for key information. What he saw was more than a little bizarre, and all somehow connected to this all encompassing "Christmas" thing

_..."Operation Scrooge"?...Okay. What exactly was Recluse on when he came up with this?_ He read further. _…And same goes for Miss Liberty. And who the hells is this "Gamester" it's going on about?_ Head whirling as he tried to comprehend what he had just read, he typed off a short reply-

-------------------------

We're going to have to watch out in the next few days. Especially this 'NCsoft'…It has many connections to the highest levels of both the Rouge Isles and Paragon City. Inform me if you find anything else.

--Kandosii

-------------------------

He sent the e-mail and was just about to shut down his computer when he stopped dead, staring at the report. This NCsoft must truly be powerful. They were in control of Arachnos, and he had proof, in two short words, halfway through the report:

"Lord Recluse ™"


End file.
